I just got out of a sold-out screening of Backrooms, and honestly, I’m still processing it.
First off, let’s talk about the obvious headline: a 20-year-old filmmaker is about to have one of the biggest movies in America. That’s insane. Whether the opening weekend projections hold or not, what Kane Parsons has accomplished here is remarkable. We talk a lot about new voices in horror, but this feels like the arrival of a genuinely significant talent.
What impressed me most wasn’t the concept. It was the craftsmanship.
The production design in this movie is phenomenal. I’m not exaggerating when I say it deserves awards consideration. The endless maze of distorted rooms, impossible spaces, furniture arrangements, and memory fragments creates one of the most visually fascinating horror environments I’ve seen in years. Every room feels like it has a story behind it, even when you don’t fully understand what you’re looking at.
The sound design, score, editing, and cinematography are all excellent. There are moments where the movie is operating at an incredibly high technical level, and it’s hard to believe someone this young directed it.
Set in 1990, the film follows Clark, a troubled furniture store owner struggling with alcoholism, anger, and a tendency to blame others for his problems. While navigating therapy with Mary, a compassionate but skeptical therapist, Clark discovers a mysterious doorway hidden within a department store that leads into the Backrooms—an endless maze of strange, interconnected spaces. As his obsession with the phenomenon grows, Clark is drawn deeper into its mysteries, forcing both him and Mary to confront unsettling truths that blur the line between reality, memory, and trauma.
The performances are great too. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve bring a lot of emotional weight to material that could have easily gotten lost beneath the film’s mythology. Clark, played by Ejiofor, is a deeply flawed man carrying rage, guilt, insecurity, and self-destructive tendencies. As he becomes obsessed with the Backrooms, the film gradually reveals that the place isn’t just another dimension—it’s a landscape built from memories, trauma, and unresolved emotions.
That’s where the movie became really interesting for me.
The Backrooms aren’t simply scary because they’re endless. They’re scary because they’re imperfect recreations of human experiences. Memories are distorted. People are incomplete. Rooms feel familiar but wrong. The film captures that dreamlike feeling where something almost makes sense, but not quite.
The horror itself is incredibly effective, especially during the first two-thirds of the film. The opening sequence is one of the best horror scenes I’ve seen all year. I was completely locked in from the start.
The found-footage sequences are outstanding. They gave me strong The Blair Witch Project vibes, and the grainy 1990s aesthetic made everything feel authentic and unsettling. Those scenes capture the exact feeling that made the original Backrooms concept so compelling: the fear of wandering somewhere you shouldn’t be, hearing something nearby, and never quite knowing what’s watching you.
In many ways, the movie is at its scariest when it embraces uncertainty. There’s something deeply unsettling about hearing footsteps in the distance and knowing something is following you without knowing what it is.
That’s also where my one major criticism comes in.
I think some viewers are going to be divided by the monster reveal. For me, it makes thematic sense. Clark’s greatest enemy is ultimately himself—his anger, his guilt, his inability to change. The creature reflects that idea. It’s practical, creepy, and well executed.
But I also think the unknown was scarier.
Before the reveal, the film thrives on tension and imagination. Once the mystery becomes more concrete, some of that fear naturally fades. It didn’t ruin the movie for me, but it was the point where I felt the film lost a little bit of its terrifying edge.
That said, I loved that the ending remains open-ended. The movie constantly asks questions rather than providing easy answers. What exactly are the Backrooms? Are they another dimension? A psychological construct? Some kind of afterlife? Why are people studying them? What happens to Clark? What happens to Mary?
The film never gives you a neat explanation, and I think it’s better for it.
I also got weird BioShock vibes throughout the movie. Maybe it was the music, the atmosphere, the sense of discovering a forgotten place that shouldn’t exist, or the environmental storytelling. Whatever it was, it reminded me of wandering through Rapture for the first time. It made me think that Parsons has an incredible eye for building worlds and spaces.
At the end of the day, Backrooms succeeds because it understands that horror isn’t just about monsters. It’s about atmosphere, mystery, and the fear of confronting parts of yourself you’d rather ignore.
The two found-footage sequences are among the best scenes I’ve seen all year. The production design is extraordinary. The performances are strong. The atmosphere is suffocating and unforgettable.
Most importantly, it announces Kane Parsons as a filmmaker worth paying attention to.
Horror keeps producing exciting new voices, and this feels like another major one. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Backrooms = 85/100